why i love being a diabetic ?? .........contd.

My parents chose the expensive, but otherwise instantaneous solution thinking that this will be beneficial in getting more accurate and fast results. It turned out to be exactly opposite of what was expected of it. The results were wayward. There were two blood samples taken at a time, one was sent to the lab and the other was tested on the glucometer. The results were quiet different from each other. Lab reports usually came late, approximately 4 hours after the sample has been submitted. This sometimes led to my benefit. The glucometer at times showed low sugar levels. Then the doctors would tell me to eat anything with high sugar component. This was my favorite part, I would roam the PGI canteen like a free bird and grab my hands on anything. The lab reports would confirm later that the glucometer readings were wrong. But technology improved ,and so did the precision levels of glucometer.

I wasn’t much of a reader, but in PGI……….you find yourself things to keep you busy. I went to the library during daytimes and night times were reserved for the famous Raj comics. I did some research on Diabetes and found out that there is no cure for the same, but only control. This led my kiddish mind to think logically like an adult, and I framed this question to the then Diabetologist, "if you don’t have a cure for me, why are you keeping me here?". He was answerless, and so were his colleagues. I guess they werent much bothered about my condition, but they were more interested in me as a research subject showing perfect growth, no diabetes symptoms with higher blood sugar levels indicating Diabetes Mellitus. I now wonder I must have been quoted in many a PhD's or Masters degrees in PGI.

My mamaji was closest to me at that time. He was my best friend. He would bring me my favorite comic books to read during the night, as we have to pass-time somehow to keep up with the blood samples chart after every alternate hour. If anyone of us dozed off, the other one would wake him and we talked to each other endlessly. This was also the time he came closest to me, and I would share everything with him. At times, I was more comfortable with him than my own parents. He was by far the best person I have known so far. I learnt one thing from him which I am trying till date. To be honest, to be on the right side, to keep sticking to the right side come what may, to stay strong, to believe in yourself, to be yourself. He was a fighter. He was the first person on this planet for whom I shed my tears for. His demise wasn’t easy on me or on my mom. Though I never showed it to her, but I wasn’t psychologically fine tuned with his demise. I had to support my mother. I love my diabetes for it brought me closer to a person like him and taught me so many a things. He died within a year I was diagnosed and till date there has never been a day which has gone by without me remembering him. I am the type of person who wouldn’t cry before anybody………..but I did cry before my best pal Dhruv. I know I am going a bit off topic, but I guess this is just putting thoughts on paper as they come.

So consider this as a jump in the timeline. I was with Dhruv in PGI emergency ward where our teacher's mother was admitted. On the next bed was a girl with Diabetes and she was accompanied by her mother and her mamaji. This reminded me of my mamaji, and one fine night I finally broke in front of Dhruv and cried like anything remembering him. I have taken everything in my life very positively and if it was for good…………….but this was something I was never convinced with. Perhaps we all are selfish at times, and I am thinking just about myself. Its good for him that he went away and he wont have to suffer the tension and trauma we all face today for some reason or the other. We all are grief sticken, but he must be happy somewhere.

Jumping back to the past times, I got discharged from PGI after a month of exhaustive team research on myself. I came back home and all was changed. People looking at me with mercy and sympathy. This is something really hard for a patient to come home from a sick atmosphere and being looked upon as a patient again. The most difficult and the most important thing for a Diabetic is to make his family, friend, relatives and everyone around him understand that he is not diseased, its just a condition which needs attention and care, and not sympathy and mercy. If a diabetic leads a prescribed life, he has a higher life expectancy than a normal person…………..and this is something which very few people understand.

THERES MORE TO COME, WHEN I HAVE TIME TO SPARE THE NEXT……………………………………..